Constable fighting second battle for survival

A day after Delhi Police constable Subhash Chand Tomar, 45, collapsed after facing the fury of the mob at India Gate, doctors at RML hospital said his condition was critical and his survival chances were minimal.

On Sunday, Tomar was officially deployed at Ramlila Ground where Yoga guru Ramdev was supposed to hold protests.

But since Ramdev's supporters marched towards India Gate, Tomar and his colleagues followed them there, where agitators assaulted him by running over him again and again after he fell on the road.

Dr TS Sidhu, medical superintendent of the hospital, said Tomar was brought to the hospital in a state of cardiac arrest on Sunday evening.

This will be Tomar's second battle for survival. Earlier in 1989, he was gravely injured when there was a bomb blast in the DTC bus he was travelling in.

His family members told Hindustan Times that he had never spent a single festival with them. Tomar — who joined the force in 1987 — was always out on streets with other police personnel on such days.

"The protesters are demonstrating for the right cause. What happened to the 23-year-old girl was wrong but the people are directing their anger at the police who are only doing their duty," said Tomar's daughter Jyoti, a BA student.

His family members, combrising his wife, a daughter and two sons, have requested that the protestors to agitate peacefully.

"The media is only showing police hitting the protesters, but many protesters were hurling stones and beating policemen with sticks," said an aunt of Tomar.

"God has been a little unkind to him. Policing is a dangerous job but somebody has to do it. We hail from western Uttar Pradesh where a lot of people join the police," said his cousin, Yudhvir Singh who too is in the Delhi Police.

Critical at RML HospitalTomar’s continues to remain critical and has been put on ventilator in the ICU. The constable lost consciousness when the protesters physically assaulted him. “His heart is a cause for worry, We gave him a cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

He came back but is critical," said Dr TS Sidhu, medical superintendent of RML hospital. HTC